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I need some help. I've been using blender for building meshes for a while now and have got very smooth at working with it (I know all the hot keys and such). I just started the game art program at Full Sail and also started doing work for a indie game company. They both want me to learn Maya (I also have to learn Max in school) and was wondering if anyone knew and good tutorial sites that translate Blender-speak to Maya. Or even better if there is a way to make Maya use Blender hotkeys. Its really becoming a pain to get used to Maya because I'm so used to Blender and it frustrates me to have to basically start from scratch in my education when I've been building animated meshes for the past two years. If anyone could help me out I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks,

Meg

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Doesn't make a whole lot of sense that you need to learn Maya for an indie place. You can always export your models from blender and import into maya. Your question about learning it is pretty stupid though. What don't you specifically get? Edge loops? Uv-unwrap? Why can't you google those things for maya and read about it. You asked "I know blender so how do I learn maya." You learn maya, blender has nothing to do with it. Its not like someone here wrote a book called Blender to Maya, you just have to read about it and figure out hotkeys.
Edited July 2, 2012 by dpadam450

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You don't learn it from scratch, all your modelling skills will be transfered, you just need to learn a new user interface and map the terminology. But I fear , that you need to learn it by doing it, but once you get familiar with maya you will make progress quite fast.

You can always export your models from blender and import into maya.

Even if this is true, using a homogenous tool set have many advantages like using special export scripts, explaining certain requirements on the basis of a single tool, helping each other etc. Not all features can be exported/imported, like notes, special attributes etc.

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For low level problems of user interface unfamiliarity, don't you have a good cheatsheet to remind you of Maya menu commands, keyboard shortcuts, etc. until you learn them by heart? For higher level problems with abstractions and terminology, what are manuals, tutorials and unable to make clear?

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The problem is mostly that I have a maya hot key reference but because I learned in Blender first I don't know what the commands are called in Maya. Like I hate having to try out every command to understand what the Maya reference is talking about. I created a sheet of commands I was able to figure out but for most commands I'm having problems translating Maya-speak. I was just wanting to know if there were any tutorials or references that could translate the commands for me from what they do in Maya to what they would do in Blender. But its looking like nobody has any so I guess I'll just have to go watch about 20 tutorials and read 10 books to be able to do in Maya what I can already do in Blender. Just seems like a giant waste of time but because I don't have anyway around having to learn Maya from scratch than I'm going to take that I'm screwed and move on. Thanks for the help.

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But its looking like nobody has any so I guess I'll just have to go watch about 20 tutorials and read 10 books[/quote]

People that depressingly exaggerate usually are not serious or immature. As stated above most terminology if not all, translates. Edge loops/cuts, subdivision, extrude, bevel. So I can't think of what you are having a problem with. Watch a youtube tutorial of someone making something.......

You say they want you to learn maya, so do you work at their studio? Are they helping you to learn? It sounds like you don't actually work at a physical studio otherwise you would just ask someone about it. So then if you don't work with people that know Maya and can teach you maya, there is no reason for you to learn it. What does that accomplish for them if you waste time learning maya, especially when you say Indie team? Are they paying you? Are you a contractor that they want to hire full-time? None of that makes sense. So:

If you don't physically work there, and aren't getting paid. Then don't learn Maya.
If you don't physically work there, and work as a freelancer. Then figure out why in the hell they want you to learn maya.
If you do physically work there, or they might bring you on full-time, and they already know you don't know Maya, then have them teach you/help you. I don't see how they wouldn't help you, and if they don't know maya then that's absurd you would be wanted to learn it.

I've never used maya but concepts seem to apply across all these tools. Subdivision, Edge loop cuts, beveling.

In general though learning maya will help you out being as most people use it, but when you say "some indie company wants me to learn it." I'd examine your situation as I did above.
Edited July 10, 2012 by dpadam450

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I was just wanting to know if there were any tutorials or references that could translate the commands for me from what they do in Maya to what they would do in Blender.

Maya is not blender with an other UI skin !

You just can't expect to find the excactly same functions in maya. There will be some basic commands like center object, but other commands will not work like in blender. Maya will have similar, but not the same tools. Blender is known to define a short-cut for almost every function, other tools are more mouse controlled and you need to setup the short-cuts yourself.

So, you really need to learn to work with maya from the ground up, but if you are already a seasoned modeller, you will not encounter many issues.

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It's good to hear that you're going to school to learn something you've studied for two years now in Blender. I've heard plenty of good things about Full Sail University. I don't know how easy or hard it is for you as a student to ask your instructors questions regarding the applications they're going to be teaching you. I've never used Blender so I can't share with you the frusfration that stems from having to learn a new program. Especially when you're so familiar with one you've used for such a long time.

On Topic:

Maya has a hotkey editor that can be accessed by selecting the "Window" menu at the very top of the UI.

When you select Window you should see "Settings/Preferences" Hovering your mouse over this will display a few options that allow you to change your preferences as well as change your hotkeys named simply "Hotkey Editor" I don't know if you can copy and paste any hotkey settings but the hotkey editor will show you every hotkey option available in Maya. This can allow you to familiarize yourself with the default hotkeys in Maya. They can also be changed to suit your needs.

Maya also has a very extensive (but sometimes vague) documentation that should be provided for you upon installation. It should be available on both student licenses and fully featured node-locked licenses. The EDU license shouldn't be any different from the fully featured save that you can't sell anything made on an edu license to my knowledge. This documentation can be accessed by selecting "Help" and then selecting "Maya Help" which is the very last menu at the top of the UI. If you're on a Windows OS this is hotkeyed as F1. I don't know what it is on an Mac OS.

Recommendations:

As for the learning curve. If you have enough money to pay for a subscription to either the Gnomen Workshop or Digital Tutors you can find a wide range of tutorials that are also available on DVD from both locations that can help you in learning both Autodesk Maya, and Autodesk 3DS MAX. You can also visit SimplyMaya if you wish to take part in a Maya, and MAX based community. All three websites have free tutorials as well as a subscription based membership. These tutorials range in difficulty from beginner to experienced.

I'd also recommend checking YouTube. There are a surprisingly large number of tutorials completely free that can aid you in learning new things.

Of course there is also just toying around with Maya and getting used to it. It will take some time.

Notes:

Having more than one program to work from is also very useful. I'm familiar with Blenders capabilities and know that it can do things that are optimized through plug-ins that Maya does not have for every release i.e: Maya version 7, or 8 has many more plug-ins than Maya version 2012,13. So you have a very useful tool on hand already, and what you cannot do in Maya due to lack of experience in the program can be done in Blender and transferred to Maya through various means.

Mostly through exporting to .OBJ files or even .FBX files if Blender supports that format. If blender can also export Displacement, normal, bump, and height maps in appropriate image formats then you can also import these maps into Maya and apply them on your model via the attribute editor or by using Hypershade which acts as Maya's native material/shader editor.